


A Silken Web

by Lyssandra_Med



Series: One-Shot [66]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Creature Fic, Creature Hermione Granger, Dark Hermione Granger, F/F, Fluff and Smut, Smut, Spiders, This Fic is filled with Spiders, endgame Bellamione
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25996033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyssandra_Med/pseuds/Lyssandra_Med
Summary: Her magic simply hadn’t worked like that. It didn’t take like that. It wasn’t a potion one could imbibe or a spell that could be learned, recited.Her magic simply worked. It would never, ever cease.It couldn’t, and she wouldn’t.Not now.Or;This fic is filled with spiders
Relationships: Fleur Delacour/Hermione Granger, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger/Bellatrix Black Lestrange, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Series: One-Shot [66]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1429282
Comments: 6
Kudos: 111





	A Silken Web

**Author's Note:**

> Rewritten but not edited  
> Arachnophobes beware

Ichor blossomed from her chest when the fang pressed down. It rolled up from within her lungs, spread around the cracks of her heart and bloodied her eyes.

Hermione gagged on the taste of death, forced it back out.

But the Olde was something that would not be denied, even as it worked hand in hand with the Wilde. The blackened shape settling upon Hermione’s chest was only proof of that.

Something within her  _ cracked. _

Something deep inside her mind  _ shattered. _

Hermione screamed, driven and unending as it echoed throughout the forest.

And then she awoke.

\---

The Registry was the one document that was supposed to be up to date. It was  _ law. _

Or so the Ministry liked to threaten. It  _ should _ have held within it all the names of every Animagi, their animal, the date that they first achieved their shift. 

Should have also included whether or not they’d died, where they lived, what individual portions of their anatomy was mirrored between forms. 

It didn’t though. Certainly it didn’t include  _ her, _ though she wasn’t exactly sure whether she could be considered an Animagi or not. Perhaps she would never understand it, or find herself written onto that hallowed document. 

She wasn’t -  _ couldn’t _ \- be one.

Her magic simply hadn’t worked like that. It didn’t  _ take _ like that. It wasn’t a potion one could imbibe or a spell that could be learned, recited.

Her magic simply worked. It would never, ever cease.

It  _ couldn’t, _ and she _ wouldn’t. _

Not now.

\---

If Hermione had known the alternatives beforehand then she never would have volunteered to go with them. She would have even preferred to have been petrified that year, instead of shoved up into whatever the hell she was now. 

An abomination. A mixture of one thing, and then another.

Wilde had tasted Wilde. Olde had tasted Olde. Her bloodline was not so impure as to have gone unnoticed by Lady Magic, and all she’d needed was a single nucleation point.

Granger-Dagworth, as revealed by a meeting at Gringotts a few weeks later.

That revelation had shattered everything she’d ever known about herself. All her presumptuous pride at abilities she’d built from the ground up, gone. 

All of it.

What was left for her to have pride in? She’d simply been a late bloomer. The sorry last child in a line of Squibs that had continued on unbroken for who knew how long.

She wasn’t a half-blood. Not even a quarter. She was, instead, some diluted mess.

But she was enough of  _ them _ to still be special. 

Her cry for help had been answered that night, deep within the Forest. A God, Goddess, a Demi-God or something else.

_ Anything. She’d wished for  _ **_anything_ ** _ to save her. _

The burst of magic had crashed  _ up _ through her body. She’d been pinned to the ground and it had come through the land, from the world that lay below her. It had been lying there dormant and unassuming for who knew how long until she’d managed to find a reason to drag it into the light.

Not that it had been her intention to do that.

They were supposed to go into the Forest and see the creature -  _ or creatures, or  _ **_things_ ** _ , or whatever in the bloody fuck it was that Hagrid had managed to keep to himself during those lost and forlorn years _ \- and then leave. 

It was supposed to have been simple but with Harry nothing was  _ ever _ simple.

And really, who could fault Lady Magic? She’d simply heard Hermione’s call and let the Wilde overtake her, let the Olde overcome her. 

What better way was there to save a girl from being eaten by massive spiders than to give them absolutely no reason to hurt her?

What better way to make her unappealing to their stomachs than to make her into something that was  _ not _ a girl?

\---

There were more than a few positives to Hermione’s change. 

Ron finally left her alone, for one. It was lovely to finally be out of his gaze, his path towards Harry’s friendship no longer encumbered by her presence. She no longer needed to act as his little saviour, no longer needed to keep on good terms. 

All his fears were made manifest in her blood and body, and Ron no longer found her quite so useful or attractive -  _ as much as a thirteen-year-old boy could, at least _ \- or helpful in every situation that mildly inconvenienced him. 

He left.

It was quite a shock, really. One day he’d been nagging after Harry for the answers to a sheaf of homework that  _ she’d _ been working on. She’d tutored Harry, she’d looked over his answers,  _ she _ had done the hard work.

The next morning he was gone, sent home to be tutored by his mother. 

Hermione never managed to shed a tear over his disappearance. Couldn’t, really.

She wasn’t built for that anymore.

She did, however, laugh when Pomfrey sent every student a letter about diagnosing spider bites. 

\---

The third year was -  _ when compared to the rest, at least _ \- quite easy.

It hadn’t taken her long to sniff out Professor Lupin’s secret. Or rather, he had managed to sniff out hers, though in the end they came to their conclusions at almost the exact same time. 

She let Harry know. She let Professor Dumbledore know that she knew.

Professor Dumbledore did fuck all about it, but she supposed that was fine. There wasn’t much that he could have done and she did have to admit that Professor Lupin was a wonderful teacher.

The most interesting thing to happen that year was found within her web. The rat she caught squealed once or twice before expiring, before changing shape and growing until her gossamer threads had all been torn apart.

He was disgusting but already turning soft along his insides, and there wasn’t very much that she could do to save him. 

And he wasn’t listed on the Animagus Registry, which came as -  _ not much of _ \- a shock.

And he was supposed to have been dead already, which was -  _ legitimately _ \- a shock.

And then dear Lupin had managed to get a good view -  _ being Shack-Friends made it easy for him to realize what she’d  _ **_(inadvertently)_ ** _ done _ \- and nearly lost it.

It didn’t help that he’d been in his mangy little state. 

And by all the varied Gods he  _ was _ mangy.

Hermione researched that when she could. Realized afterwards that it wasn’t exactly healthy for someone to deny their beast as much as Lupin did.

A consequence of his position at the school? A result of his internalized hatred of Werewolves?

Who knew. She didn’t care.

She’d never once denied herself since coming to an understanding with the creature inside her heart, so that particular issue didn’t much matter to her. She made an offhand comment about it and watched as he blanched.

Nothing changed, so she determined it didn’t matter.

Well,  _ some _ things managed to change. Sirius was released pending a full retrial -  _ not that there had even been one to begin with, a fact the Ministry so glaringly overlooked _ \- and a stint at St. Mungos to evaluate his health post-Azkaban.

Sirius was nice.

His library was nicer still. Old and stuffed to the gills with moulding books that fell apart at the seams, but that was beside the point. It was all hers to peruse, Sirius held no interest in it.

Just two fourteen-year-old children wandering around the ancient estate while Sirius and Remus -  _ a pair that she had immediately recognized were a  _ **_pair_ ** _ , even if Harry swore that he couldn’t see it _ \- made up for lost time.

And failed to chaperon them, but she’d never complain about that.

She  _ would _ complain about using  _ Remus _ instead of Professor Lupin. It was just  _ odd. _

But she tried, especially when they managed to take down that horrid portrait in the corridor. She tried harder when they gave her free reign over every room, so long as she evicted the Doxies.

Harry helped her with that task.

Or was forced to, rather. It turned out that saving his Godfather had bought her into his good graces and he’d obliged her request with good-natured charm.

She tucked that little bit of knowledge into the back of her mind for later use.

\---

Summer flew by quickly.

Uneventfully, really.

The only sticking point to the summer was having to deal with Harry’s infatuation. She simply didn’t fancy him the way he fancied her.

Ginny made a good second though, even if the jealousy that burned within Hermione’s chest wasn’t for the person she’d once thought she would latch onto. 

A learning experience that was helped along by their fourth year being overrun by French lovebirds.

One of those birds managed to help her. One of them knew something about being  _ different, _ about being not entirely  _ normal. _

She offered Hermione more than a few tips on fitting in, pointers that were meant to make meshing with the rest of the world an easier task. Some of them stuck. Some of them wouldn’t work in somewhere so stuffy as England. Others felt…  _ Tame. _

They wouldn’t give her the freedom to stretch her many legs.

But her bird wasn’t averse to being strung up in the far corner of the Room of Requirement. The bird was quiet and cheerful, a soothing balm to stressful days. 

When Hermione found herself deep below the surface of the Lake the bird found out that some spiders could weave their webs into little diving bells, all the better to hold onto air deep down below the surface. It was a faint boon but surprising enough that it earned Hermione two fingers deep inside her core, twitching as she gyrated and left them stuck in a lovely position when her newest cocktail of venom took hold.

That was a fun night. And morning. And following afternoon.

The last Trial wasn’t. The last Trial saw her skittering around the borders of the maze in her smallest form, little golden body shimmering in the stage-lights and unseen by anyone that would have mattered. Whoever  _ did _ manage to catch sight of Hermione quickly put her out of mind.

No one made much of the little spider that was slinking along through the maze, mist-soaked shrubbery and grass disguising her as she moved.

Good for her.

Bad for Harry.

Good for her when she tagged along on his sweater, the both of them flying off into the nothing that was the graveyard.

She thanked whatever Goddess had answered her plea all those years ago when she was flung away from him and left unharmed. She wasn’t crushed beneath anyone or the magic that was released that night. She was not seen.

She  _ saw. _

\---

“I don’t give a damn what he says, I want to know how  _ she _ knows!”

The same argument, over and over, again and again.

Fleur wasn’t there anymore. She’d been sent back to her carriage and Hermione had been cordoned off with Harry when she’d returned.

_ How had she seen it? _

It was the only thing that any of them wanted to know. Apparently the word of a madman traipsing about as a teacher, the Boy-Who-Lived,  _ and _ Dumbledore just wasn’t enough. It took the word of a muggle-born -  _ even if that designation meant jack to her now _ \- to sway Fudge into seeing the light.

Hermione hated it. Hated that he needed  _ her _ there, even as she cursed them all under her breath, smiled at Harry and said it would all be okay. Dragged the silken memory from her mind and made no effort at all to explain why there were eight vantage points. They could see each of them from where she’d been, but they could not see her.

Pensieves were finicky things, who was she to explain why this memory was odd above all the others? And if they wanted to know  _ how _ she'd gotten there, they could imagine ways. 

It was her secret to keep and she kept it well. 

She didn’t give them a chance to ask. She simply dragged Harry from the room and sent him off to Ginny before he could break down. Crisis averted, world saved.

She headed to the Beauxbatons carriage next. 

Her bird was scared, frightened and shaking. 

Hermione strung her up inside her little room, held her still and dragged sweetness from warm lips. Ate her fill and then luxuriated for a moment in the false reality she’d created.

Fleur was nice to her. Fleur accepted her. Fleur would run her hands down many-jointed legs and ask her how they moved.

Blood.

But Fleur wasn’t long for this land and the end of the tournament was the end of their time together. 

Chaste kisses presented in company, lascivious marks that hid beneath their clothes. A trail of puncture marks that were soothed with magic and tongue, a presence that would never be forgotten.

She cried for the first time since the last, however long that’d been.

\---

Summer was an annoying stretch of loneliness.

Her parents left. Off to the continent on an extended vacation, or so they said. Somewhere far away from her and thus not somewhere she wished to think of.

Hermione didn’t have the courage to tell Harry that they hadn’t wanted to be near her when she’d returned. Would never tell him that they’d confessed they couldn’t understand her. Couldn’t wait to be rid of the child that they’d raised. Couldn’t fathom being  _ here, _ where their little girl skulked around the house and made clothing from the finest silk.

They couldn’t stand the spiders that adorned her hair, that skittered over her hands and took vigil upon her shoulders. 

She took to research instead of depression. Remus knew her secret in full, knew more than enough to help. He poured over books, looking for  _ things _ like her. He asked the Ministry for answers when there were roadblocks, stalked known adventurers until they’d told him all they could.

No one.

She was alone.

\---

Everything hurt.

The Room of Requirement had once been a safe haven for Hermione. 

Now it was  _ full. _ People constantly milling about, constantly entering and leaving. 

Far too many of them. And even the hallways weren’t safe, especially not now that Umbridge had her toadies wandering about in search of souls to torment.

The only thing that managed to soothe her ache was being small and diminutive, unseen as she wandered across ceilings and fell down upon their heads.

Bit, then scurried away.

Remus would admonish her if he could.

He didn’t.

Couldn’t. He’d been sent away, a grey hush falling across their class the day that Umbridge had stepped up to replace him. His secret wasn’t so secret anymore but hers was safe, for now.

She had no illusions about it lasting but she’d been able to hold herself in check. She couldn’t let herself go, couldn’t be found out. She couldn’t sate the desires that bubbled along with all her hatred.

But then Umbridge had started cutting students and all Hermione’s restraint went out the window.

\---

The spiders of the Forest all flocked to her. 

Little ones gathered first, those who followed from the Castle or Hagrid’s hut. Little house spiders that trailed in the depressions she left behind, jumping spiders that clung to her hair and fingers as they shook and told her all the things that they could see. Fat widows crawled up her legs and sung her songs about past lovers, thin-legged cardinals tickled at her nose as they crouched upon her brows.

Those and many more crawled after her as she wandered into the Forest, mundane varieties finding comfort in her presence and magical ones seeing her as some queer sort of equal. 

The magical variants were smarter about it. They kept their distance no matter how much they sensed someone like them, they wandered away from her with as much purposeful movement as the Acromantulas. They knew a predator when they saw one and they knew her power by the welcoming vibration of the forest floor.

The Acromantulas left her alone as well, they had long memories and were too afraid to go near that which had stripped Aragog and Mosag of their might.

It made walking without being seen quite hard, but Hermione cared little if the only eyes to watch her came in groups of eight instead of two.

And at least the spiders were mostly quiet, unlike her shrill companion.

“Well, where is it?!” the woman cried out, screeching and pointed. “You said it was out here now where is it? Where’s his weapon?!”

Deeper still.

Further beneath the canopy of a terrible land.

Harry had fallen away with minimal prompting on her part. He’d known her since the change and known her well, he understood what she was going to do. He had people he needed to rouse from slumber, friends to gather before the fight.

The squirming body was left to hang between the exposed mass of a twisted oak. Twin pinprick bites left a thin line of venom and blood crawling down its face, the grin locked up as homebrewed acid ate away at her insides.

The Acromantulas that followed her were big, creeping along the periphery of her vision and staying just  _ barely _ out of sight. 

But Hermione was larger, feral and  _ wanting. _

_ Hungering. _

_ ‘Harry never has to know, not for sure,’ _ she crooned, comforting herself until she came to believe the lie.  _ ‘All mine, all mine, mine,  _ **_mine_ ** _ …’ _

\---

She should have known that this was all a trap. It had just seemed too good to be true and instead of thinking through it rationally she had let her distaste of the Toad blind her to the truth. Remus had been saved at the beginning of the year, Sirius would  _ never _ let himself be held in the same position.

But now there was no one there except for  _ them. _

Alone. 

Teenagers and a prophecy against the assembled force of the Dark’s best knights. The calculus was easy to solve.

Hermione faded away, drew down and in to her smaller self. Jumped from row to row on a raft that had been crafted from silk, clung desperately to a roiling mass of tangled hair when the Orb changed hands.

There would be no fight here. There would be no give and take, or a heroic effort to save the prophecy.

Harry had listened to it, realized what they wanted and  _ why. _ He bet that they wanted out much more than they wanted blood.

It was a smart move. It was the one she would have made,  _ if  _ she were one to really care about such drivel as prophecies delivered by old drunks.

But she wasn’t. Neither was Harry. She’d made it clear she would be there but wouldn’t truly risk her own life, had made that plain to him before they’d arrived.

He’d nodded, accepted her at face value. Thanked her for dealing with Umbridge. 

He didn’t even make an off-hand comment about how much she had changed.

That suited Hermione just fine.

What didn’t, however, was suddenly flying off through space and time on the back of a woman who she’d barely even met.

\---

“Well looky here, what’s this?”

A wand pressed down into the centre of Hermione’s forehead, probing and insistent that it remain there.

Hermione stared at him. Glared, even. Skewered the holder with all her accumulated hate at being on the other end of death.

She shifted and stared him down, all her many eyes unblinking and chelicerae vibrating in anticipation of a kill.

Someone knocked her out with a spell. One moment she was awake and ready to attack, the next she was asleep.

\---

Hermione awoke with chains adorning her body. Long and heavy, they glittered beautifully in the half-light. Made of iron and braided thick, the outer edges were dark where words of power had been inscribed. From each wrist and out to the wall they ran, from her ankles to the floor.

A looping collar had been cinched around her neck and the sound of the chains moving in protest rang harshly against her ears.

Hermione fought it. Shifted, or attempted it. Felt herself change minutely before the weight crashed back, pounding magic into her limbs and core.

She growled, screamed and writhed. No escape.

Small room, thick chains around her body. A door that was made from iron bars. There was no window, just the light of a burning torch on the wall outside her cell.

She shook again, tried to fight it again, lashed out and made her throat raw with pain.

Nothing.

No one.

Time passed her by in immaterial waves, blanketing and moving Hermione along without a care. 

But someone finally -  _ blessedly _ \- broke the monotony.

“What are you?” the woman asked her, stepping forward with thin arms weaving between the bars of Hermione’s cell. “Who are you?”

Hermione answered her questions readily enough. She had no reason to lie or obfuscate the truth, nor did she have the will to pretend to be someone -  _ something _ \- else. She’d been here for an unknown stretch of time and she couldn’t do anything except note that her body was hungry.

“Oh, oh, oh!” the woman tittered, pleased with Hermione’s obvious contrition. “We’ll have some fun together Muddy, you and me. Yes, yes, we’ll have some fun!”

\---

Fun was a relative description.

For Bellatrix there was fun to be found in chaos and mayhem, in bathing beneath the blood of her Lord’s enemies. Bacchanals dedicated to her Lord were  _ fun. _

For Hermione it was a sense of freedom from her chains, and a pretty little collar that had been wrapped tightly around her neck.

It was a gift. A present.  _ She _ was the gift, the present. An object given to His Lieutenant.

Hermione didn’t care.

She killed Fenrir the first moment she was allowed to shift, halfway between bodies. Her top half towered over her lower half and strong arms wrapped around him as she bit down, dragged him backwards up a wall. Her silk was pretty here, deep within Malfoy Manor. They had rooms upon rooms that were empty, whole hallways and wings that were dedicated to the dead.

No one moved to stop her.

They had anticipated it, or so it seemed.

That she felt one single mote of remorse -  _ he smelled so very much like Remus that she’d lost herself for a moment _ \- was irrelevant; she crushed her regrets beneath the sensation of a sated belly. His husk lay against a corner of the ceiling as a constant reminder that this was  _ her _ space now, no matter the collar around her neck.

She was a dangerous creature - _and she_ ** _was_** _a creature, she had no illusions about that now_ \- that they called _Pet,_ _Thing, Girl._ She was a dangerous animal that could not be properly contained, tamed or used.

“Come down, come down,” crowed Bellatrix, her voice filtering in from the hallway outside of Hermione’s room. “Come down, little spider. There’s so much more for you out here.”

She was the only one to enter Hermione’s chamber and leave of her own volition.

\---

Bellatrix had told her the truth. There  _ was _ more fun for her out here. 

More food for her to devour. Recognition for her abilities. Voldemort laying low all his own supplicants when it became clear they harboured ill wishes.

Voldemort praised that which was Olde. He uplifted that which was Wilde. He praised the magic that had made her as she was, even as she cringed away from his freezing touch.

She hated him. She tried to hate Nagini as well. Tried to hate no matter if it were right or wrong. 

She didn’t enjoy that Nagini could talk to her, mind to mind, speaking as if they were one and the same. 

Nagini told her stories. Tales of time long past, told her of what had happened all those years ago and how she’d come into Voldemort’s service.

Oh how Hermione wanted to hate her. But Nagini was simple, and she recognized Hermione for what she was.

Human made inhuman.

A person made into a monster.

Hermione  _ did _ like Bellatrix. The woman was crazy, absolutely off her rocker but she was  _ smart. _ She was energetic, frenetic at the best of times and manic at the worst. But she would bring Hermione food, bring her little things she’d stolen just for her. Would help her wrap things up and place them all around Hermione’s nest.

And Bellatrix would release her from the iron about her neck, let her change fully into a massive beast with a golden shine that hadn’t existed before that year.

“Better nutrition,” Bellatrix had told her. “Better food for a better body. You  _ need _ things, much more than you crave them. Surviving on  _ human _ food just isn’t enough. Our Lord knows what you need.”

He did.

Still she hated him. Hated his eyes, hated his tongue, hated that horrid face with a slit where a nose should have sat. Hated that he managed to stir up memories of the Basilisk. Memories of something massive, something that could kill her with a stare despite Hermione never once having met it.

She hated Voldemort, tolerated Nagini, and in time grew to appreciate - _ enjoy _ \- the time she spent with Bellatrix.

The years turned.

\---

In the end, it was practicality that won out.

It was just more  _ practical _ that Hermione stay there, with them. They could offer her sustenance and a home, compatriots that wouldn’t fear her no matter the form she chose to wear.

It wasn’t exactly  _ practical _ to ride along on Bellatrix’s shoulder when she went to war but Hermione felt she needed  _ some _ impracticality to balance out all the rest.

Sitting tight as Bellatrix set flame to a home that Hermione had seen only once before was much more fun than it ought to have been and she hadn’t complained when they’d returned. No, she had instead decided to simply ignore the smell of smoke and ash as she tied the woman into her webbing.

She didn’t spare a thought to whether Bellatrix  _ wanted _ to be tied there. The heady thrum of blood through her veins and the delightful blush that filled her cheeks was proof enough that she did.

Bellatrix enjoyed it. Made it clear she would have enjoyed it before. But Hermione had protested, loud and long and so very clear.

Nothing would be made between them until  _ He _ was taken care of.

And now Rodolphus’s skull was hung up high above them, staring at them both with some sort of approval emanating from all his missing features.

Silked wrapped tightly around a wrist as she pulled tight, the other free to move. Legs stuck straight as Hermione pinned them down, nails scratching out their rhythm. Hermione’s mid-shift form scuttled around as she searched out the perfect vantage point from which to eat her prize.

The venom she had crafted so very long ago for her little bird had been refined by constant practice. It worked wonders now, could be bottled up for later use or given to Snape to feed his incessant need for certain potions ingredients.

Hermione didn’t know exactly how many of Voldemort’s soldiers had been spared a horrid death by her attempting to find the best way to fuck Bellatrix into the ground, and she didn’t exactly care. They left her alone whenever she wanted to be alone, brought her food whenever she needed it.

Let her have fun with the prisoners who no longer needed to be left alive.

They brought her two little bundles of prey, one night. One was scarred across his forehead, and the other was filled with a fire that matched her hair.

Hermione had thought about lying. Thought about it long and hard, knew that she could say it wasn’t them and no one would begrudge her that.

But Hermione was in her mid-shift form, and the redhead had noticed her first.

_ ‘Dryder!’ _ she had cried, leading Hermione to suddenly stand still.

_ “Hermione!’ _ he had uttered, leading Hermione to wonder just how far she’d fallen.

She held still. Felt the errant twitching of her webs as they breathed and the Death Eaters moved about in fear.

A quick shift, two hands grasped tightly, then off they went.

\---

Her bird was here.

They’d taken the lead after the first jump, bundled her in conjured blankets and then headed off with her in tow.

Her bird was alive, strong and healthy.

Her bird was  _ here _ and Hermione didn’t know how to deal with it. Couldn’t. She had disappeared for over three years, had never once kept up with the correspondence that had been delivered to an empty home.

Her bird had grown. Married a tall and strapping redhead that reminded Hermione of all the good she had once seen in Ron. Her bird stood across the room from her and wrung her hands out as tears spilt forth.

Her bird couldn’t think of a way to sing that wouldn’t leave the both of them hurting, longing for something that had been as impassioned as a flame and just as brief as a sulfur-tipped match.

But Hermione had grown up in that absence as well. She’d grown strong and tall with a proper diet that fed her magic and men. Her gold shimmered relentlessly, movements overseen by lithe hands she’d almost completely forgotten. All her legs counted, her breath ghosting in the distance between them. 

Attentive care -  _ and fear _ \- from friends she’d left behind.

“What happened?”

She told them, explicitly and without care for their emotions. Explained in detail just what had happened, when and how she had found herself driven to this state.

Sirius came to visit her with Remus in tow, twin bands of black around their fingers. She congratulated them. They congratulated her on surviving.

Sirius made a joke about his cousin that had Hermione laughing as if the gap in their camaraderie was nothing more than a weekend that she’d missed. Sirius made another joke that had her hissing, legs raised and anger sharp.

He apologized. She did so as well.

Harry laughed at them both with that awkward time of his, Ginny elbowing him in the side.

\---

The Final Battle wasn’t really final. It wasn’t much of a battle, either. It was more a meeting of those who couldn’t leave, wouldn’t abandon the world they knew.

They couldn’t change.

Hermione wasn’t among them on that day. Neither was Harry, or most of her loose circle of friends.

Most of them absconded for greener pastures abroad, aware that the Light had no foothold here and too certain that Voldemort had already won. There were many Horcruxes that they did not know about, ones that Hermione had heard of and only partly seen.

But Hermione hadn’t left.

She’d smiled apologetically when Harry asked her to leave, disappeared into the night and found herself brought back by the looping collar on her neck.

Sirius continued to visit when he could. Remus came too and each time took a pilgrimage to the desiccated corpse of Fenrir.

It was quiet.

Apparently easy access to his goals and the proof of Divine intervention had stilled Voldemort’s ambitions. He seemed to have become content to rule in absentia; the Ministry still stood tall and he lacked the tooth that many pure-blood supporters had been hoping for.

Some things  _ did  _ change. Regressed, their timeline artificially driven backwards. Holidays were amended, restrictions on certain magics lifted. Their secrecy was maintained, strengthened.

There would  _ be _ no muggle-born, not now. Contingencies were put in place, new homes and Houses created to keep them safe.

Hermione thanked him for that, even if she never did quite get over the chill that he gave her.

And she never found out which Deity had gifted her with a new lease on life. But that hardly mattered and she really didn’t care, even if Voldemort did. He spent lengths of time locked up within the memories that she’d gifted him, hours pouring over the most minute details.

Hermione didn’t care.

\---

Eight legs managed to cling onto surfaces that were pitted with age, falling apart in many respects. 

She was lighter than she looked and it was effortless on her part to hang upside down or cling to walls.

Bellatrix couldn’t keep up with her. She was simply too human and depended on Hermione when it came to manoeuvres of that sort.

Thin webs hung Bellatrix from the ceiling to rock back and forth above the ground. Hermione palmed at her, soft bits hidden beneath a layer of silk, pinched and squeezed wherever would get her the best reaction. She leaned in and breathed out against the curve of Bellatrix’s throat, picked a spot and bit harshly through her milky skin.

Her venom worked wonderfully and soon enough she could smell the sweet taste of Bellatrix’s arousal in the air. Hermione let sharp nails drag out across loops of silver while she made her way towards the wetness that dripped down from between Bellatrix’s thighs.

She used one finger to test the heat. It was a bloom, fire loosed from a too-hot forge. She leaned in and licked, sucked gently at the nubbin of engorged flesh until Bellatrix’s moans filled her ears.

Her ministrations continued until  _ right _ before Bellatrix could finish, body pulling away as the witch cried out in displeasure.

Hermione let the woman hang there for a moment more before returning to her, a pace that grew faster and more pronounced the longer she kept it up.

Pulled back, let Bellatrix cry out.

Started again.

Pulled back.

Again and again, on and on until the woman was screaming for release, two fingers buried up to their third knuckle and a sheen of threat coming through the webbing holding her up.

Hermione released her and used all of her legs to pin the woman down as she stripped her of the silk she wore so well. Replaced it with ties upon Bellatrix’s ankles and wrists, bound her and pressed as much of herself against Bellatrix as she could.

Something slid out of her as she let a different portion of her mind take over.

\---

Years continued to roll onwards.

Voldemort fell, or disappeared, or perhaps he was beaten in a duel. No one knew for sure and no one asked. All they knew was that one day he had left to wander the Forbidden Forest with Nagini at his side and the next day she had returned alone.

Nagini never told a soul but the look she gave Hermione was more than enough of an answer. Perhaps he had managed to find himself a slice of immortality, or perhaps he had disturbed the wrong Goddess.

Hermione didn’t care.

She had far too many hatchlings to take care of now, and a Manor to oversee.

Narcissa made for a lovely sister-in-law but her temper was filled with righteous fury, so white-hot that Hermione had made for Bellatrix’s ancestral home as soon as she could.

Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so necessary if she’d not killed Lucius but Draco hadn’t cared. If anything he had tacitly approved of her method, but she guessed that the older woman was just pissed she hadn’t had the chance.

Bellatrix hadn’t cared at all. She still had control of Hermione, though she replaced the iron collar with one made of Goblin Silver.

She was still just as mad, though it slowly became a mindset that Hermione loved. One she couldn’t live without, and one that her little spiderlings had imprinted on almost immediately.

Remus had once said she was alone, but Hermione had always excelled in proving her teachers wrong. 

It was a good clutch. A weird family.

An odd little web that she’d woven.


End file.
